The Last Enemy
by adaon45
Summary: Prydain chronicles: a missing episode from The Book of Three. Gwydion overcomes despair in the prison of OethAnoeth.


_Many thanks to my friend CompanionWanderer, whose recent fic "Immortal Hope" inspired me to follow Gwydion to Oeth-Anoeth._

_I assume you are under no illusions that this world is mine. It is Lloyd Alexander's, and I am everlastingly grateful that he created it._

The Last Enemy

There was no need to chain his legs—where could he go?—but they did so anyway, looping irons around his ankles before shoving him head-first into a space no larger than a grave. His first cell at Oeth-Anoeth—a fetid, windowless hole—was a palace compared to this barrow of harsh stone. In thick darkness he groped for the walls, bloodying his knuckles before he could extend his arms to their full width. The roof was similarly but an arm's length above his face.

Panic overwhelmed him, causing his heart to thud and his breath to come in shallow gasps. He had always feared narrow spaces, but only now did he realize how much. It took all his remaining strength not to pound his hands raw against the unyielding rock and scream for release.

No, he could not have predicted he would feel this way. But then Gwydion Prince of Don was about to learn much about himself he had never before confronted.

He willed himself to slow his breathing, so as not to exhaust too quickly his small store of air. Surely, though, he must soon suffocate. His hands grew clammy, terror pressing knife-sharp on his chest. Was there any way out? Moving bare feet along the wall, he could feel no chink or crack of the opening through which his captors had thrust him. It was as if the stone, having split to admit him, had sealed itself shut—forever.

There was no escape. No hope.

Oh, he had eluded death in the past, sometimes by a hair's breadth. That had been different, however. Though captured by enemies before, he had never lost the fierce pride that filled him even when he found himself sprawled on the battlefield, death sweeping toward him at the edge of a blade. But until now he had never fallen so inexorably into the hands of a foe who, refusing him a warrior's death, condemned him instead to boundless affliction.

How unflinchingly he had gazed at Achren, eyes blazing, as she drove the point of his own sword toward his throat in the hall of Spiral Castle. He had remained defiant as she paused just before the blade pierced his neck, as she screamed she would break him as surely as the weapon she proceeded to shatter. His resistance now struck him not only as futile but ridiculous. He himself had become ridiculous. His torturers had seen to that, meting out humiliation as deftly as agony.

He groaned, trying to forget the torments he had suffered upon arriving at Oeth-Anoeth. But his throbbing wounds would not allow him to blot out the memories. They had done terrible things to him, excruciating things, but that was not the worst of it. As surely as they had stripped him of his clothing before beginning their grim work, by the time they had done they had rent from him every shred of his identity. Gwydion, King Math's war leader, the greatest hero in Prydain, had entered Oeth-Anoeth; now he was gone—who knew whither?—leaving in his place this empty shell, this Not-Gwydion.

Surely it had been someone else to whom people had bowed; someone else who had commanded armies; someone else who had walked, head high, with the fluid grace of a wolf. Someone else had lived in the golden castle of Caer Dathyl, someone else, heir to the throne, had sat at the right hand of the High King. This naked captive, shivering in the stony darkness, could not be Gwydion. It was obscene even to think such a thing.

He did not know how long he lay there. Upon arriving at Oeth-Anoeth, he had lost all sense of time, a condition only worsened now he was plunged in impenetrable darkness. Stinking darkness. For this was another degradation: he had no place to relieve himself. At first he tried to drag his body toward the wall, but so cramped was the space, so great his pain and despair, that soon he could not make even that effort, but lay coated with his own filth, the stench revolting him. At least, since they had only left him a few moldy loaves and a flask of dirty water, all bodily functions must soon cease. Then he would be released from this hell by death.

He realized that, not only was he going to die, but he now wanted to.

Images swam through his head, ghosts of a past that no longer seemed his own. He caught glimpses of a woman, King Math's sister, Gwydion's mother—a woman regally dressed, with a strong-willed but sad face. She had raised her son carefully, striving not to succumb to grief at the loss of her husband in battle when her child was yet an infant. Gwydion had no memory of his father. King Math had always taken this role, especially after Gwydion's mother had died when he was scarce in his teens.

He pictured Math's and his mother's horrified pity were they to see him in this state. But surely they would not acknowledge him as kin. Their pity would be that bestowed upon a stranger. Or perhaps they would be unable to hide their revulsion at this grotesque, stinking creature.

Increasingly he was unable to hide his revulsion at himself.

He lay there, despairing, for what seemed like years. Would he never be allowed to die?

And yet—he could not have explained how it happened—there came a point when, in a distant corner of his soul, something shifted, imperceptibly yet monumentally. While outwardly he remained in utter darkness, his inner self was illumined by a light warm and healing as that of the sun which was the emblem of the House of Don.

As from a great distance, he saw his body lying broken in its blood and refuse. Yet he gazed now not with revulsion, or with condescending pity, but with that compassion which can be born only of love.

Could he have been fighting the wrong enemy all this time?

Oh, he had correctly identified one enemy—Arawn, who had killed his father and so many others. But had he not also fought himself? Had he not always sought to crush the weaknesses—like his terror at close spaces—that he believed diminished his manhood?

Much as he loved his uncle, he had inwardly shuddered at the decay of Math's aging body. He was aware, of course, of the fragility of human strength; a warrior constantly faced the danger of disfigurement and dismemberment. But even the risk of losing a leg or a hand had not unnerved him so much as the prospect of wounds that would forever deny him the active life he craved. Blessed with unusually keen vision, he feared blindness above all, a secret his tormentors at Oeth-Anoeth had guessed with unerring, fiendish accuracy. At one point, announcing they would gouge out his eyes, they pinioned him and howled with laughter as he thrashed wildly to avoid the blades that rushed toward his face. Like Achren, they had stopped just short of doing damage, and he realized their goal had been not to mutilate his body but his spirit, to pierce the pride in which he still tried to wrap himself as in a tattered garment. Upon hearing their laughter, shame flooded him, searing and molten. It had, he now knew, been one of the pivotal moments in which Gwydion vanished and Not-Gwydion took his place. He could not acknowledge the side of himself that had given way to fear, any more than he was able to bear becoming an impotent, blinded wreck.

Only now, when he could look upon his battered, vulnerable body with love rather than loathing—when he could accept and forgive his ineradicable human frailty—could the split within himself heal. At that instant, the leaden burden of shame and the fear of shame—the last a burden whose weight he had never fully acknowledged—fell from him. And Gwydion and Not-Gwydion, merging, became one.

He could finally name his last, worst enemy, even though that shape-shifting foe bore many, inextricably linked, names. The enemy was not so much death as fear of death, fear of decay, fear of weakness. Were not those the things that Arawn and his champion the Horned King really stood for? Death in itself is no enemy to those who acknowledge their lack of omnipotence. But Arawn sought to overcome mortality with a reign of sterile might. Wrenched from their graves, the Cauldron-Born were denied the peace of death and forced to be weapons in the service of a power that, denying human limits, destroyed everything in its path.

But it would not destroy him, Gwydion resolved. Yes, he could die here, and indeed was well on his way to doing so. But now that he had recovered—and strengthened—the core of his being, now that he had embraced his weakness as well as his strength, he could never truly be defeated.

And, just as earlier something had shifted within him, heralding the birth of self-knowledge, so now another feeling stirred in his heart like a bird testing its wings.

He could not identify the sensation. But somehow it reminded him of a story he had heard in the faraway past. His nurse had told him a short version of it; years later—but still years ago—he had heard a more detailed account from Taliesin, the Chief Bard.

Even in this squalid hole Gwydion felt a rush of affection for the Chief Bard, who had lived at Caer Dathyl since Gwydion was a boy. When Taliesin had told him the tale, his raven-black hair had been streaked with silver; now he was white-haired, his face deeply lined. Somewhere between the Taliesin of Gwydion's youth and the present-day one had lived another Taliesin, who had plumbed the depths of sorrow as well as of joy. Through the window of memory Gwydion recalled Chief Bard's glowing face as he had seen it on the day, long ago, when he had wed Cerys, the brilliant young bard whom he had found after resigning all hope of wife and family. And Gwydion saw Taliesin's face again, glazed with infinite grief, as it had appeared after Cerys's death in childbirth. By what alchemy could such despair be transformed into the indomitable serenity that characterized the man today? What was the secret?

Listen, Gwydion told himself. And he heard the Chief Bard's words as clearly as if he were even now speaking to the Prince of Don.

_Once there lived a farmer who so loved the land that it bloomed at his touch. So rich were his harvests that the king, who lived nearby, coveted the farm. When the farmer would not hand over his holdings, the king sent warriors to cast the man who defied him into prison._

_And so the king's henchmen bore the farmer to the very lowest of the castle dungeons. Before they left him they searched his clothing for hidden weapons or treasures. In the pouch at his belt they found one seed left of those he had been sowing when they seized him. The farmer begged his captors to let him keep the seed, for it was the one remnant of his beloved land. But they only laughed. "No plant can grow here," they mocked, removing the seed, "Take this instead." And they flung at him a pebble that lay on the dungeon's stone floor._

_Not knowing why he did so, the farmer picked up the small round stone and put it in the empty pouch, which he then hung around his neck. Thus all the while he languished there, the pebble lay on his breast._

_And he despaired. For his life had turned to stone: the green things he loved were gone, and all that remained was barren rock in which no seed could grow._

_But through it all the pebble remained in the pouch around his neck. And, though his body felt cold as the stones on which he lay, the pebble grew warm in its nest over his beating heart. And, one day—though he could no longer tell the difference between day and night—he felt a fluttering movement in the pouch. Wondering, he opened it, and the pebble sprang out and, touching the ground, put forth shoots that grew so swiftly that, before long, a noble tree with great green leaves soared toward the roof of the cell. Soon sturdy branches pierced the rock, which crumbled like parchment. _

_Marvelling, the farmer made his way through the gaps in the walls and turned his steps homeward, while behind him the collapsing castle crushed the cruel king. Once they heard that the stronghold had fallen, those of his servants who had seized the farm fled in terror, leaving the land to its rightful owner._

_And so the farmer returned to that he loved best. The country's other inhabitants, overjoyed at the fall of the cruel ruler, tried to make the farmer their new king. He refused, however, contentedly tilling the earth for the rest of his days. And the tree remained where it stood, and was called the Tree of the Seed of Hope._

Tears bathed Gwydion's face. This, then, was Taliesin's secret, as it had been the farmer's: hope. And hope, Gwydion realized, was born not despite of despair but because of it. Hope issued from despair as surely as the heart, to save the body from death, remembered how to beat. One could, of course, overlook the seed of hope; one might even crush it if one did not see it, if one could not accept the mystery of its existence. But it was always there.

And, running through the tapestry, binding together the cycles of sorrow and joy, hope and despair, youth and age, was one guiding thread: love.

Love. The lack of love was the hidden hole in Gwydion's heart. From the hour of his mother's death he had felt unutterably, inexorably, alone. He worked tirelessly for the good of Prydain, but there were no single soul in the kingdom—nor any children—to share his love. Secretly he had sorrowed over this, but never truly confronted the pain of his isolation. But he did so now, weeping in uncontrollable, apparently inconsolable grief. And yet, the passion spent, he felt again the flutter of hope. How strange that, as he lay in this most solitary spot of all, he finally no longer felt alone.

True, he had been denied one kind of love. But there were other kinds, and the memory of those he loved—dead as well as living—swelled his heart. And there was another reason not to feel alone: the promise of those who would come after him, a new generation. Memory stirred, a recent memory, of a boy frank, open, and yes, naïve, so naïve he had driven Gwydion to distraction. A boy from Caer Dallben, an orphan Dallben had adopted, and who he thought might be the one chosen to save the land from Arawn's soulless power. Perhaps so; perhaps not. But, whoever the lad turned out to be, the blossoming goodness within him was the seed of hope. Would he survive whatever ordeal Achren had put him through? Might Gwydion himself survive, and, watching Taran grow up, be in some vicarious sense a father? The only answer to both questions, he realized, was hope.

Cool air caressed his face.

So far had he distanced himself from the straits in which he lay that at first he accepted this sensation as a matter of course. And yet, on second thought, he could not imagine how he could have felt a breeze. He lifted one leg, expecting the heavy drag of his chains. If there were bonds, however, they were light as air. He stretched out an arm, but encountered no stony resistance.

A rushing sound filled his ears and light swirled around him, dazzling eyes long used to pitch darkness. When the dizzying motion stopped, he felt beneath him not harsh rock but soft moss. Growing accustomed to the light, he glimpsed the green of spring leaves. He sprang to his feet. He was in a forest glade; no sign remained of Oeth-Anoeth. Bewildered, he wondered if his tortures had been a bad dream.

But it had been no dream. Though to his amazement his body was cleansed, every wound he had received at Oeth-Anoeth was aching—if now healing—evidence of his ordeal.

His clothes lay a short distance away.

Alternately laughing and weeping, he rejoiced at his deliverance. When he calmed down, he pulled on jacket and leggings, though with difficulty, as his muscles, so long motionless, trembled so that he was forced to sit down. He was patient, however, having learned to be grateful to his body despite its inevitable frailties.

Nearby he found a clear stream and a bush bearing spring berries. No food or drink had ever tasted so delicious.

A hawk flew overhead. _Freedom_, it cried, and he was not surprised he understood its language as clearly as human speech.

He would need to rest; his wounds were too fresh for him to resume his grueling journey quite yet, especially now that he must proceed on foot. But, even lacking horse or sword, he would take up the quest, return to Spiral Castle, find out what had happened to Taran, search for Hen Wen and the Horned King.

At least this time he would know who his enemy truly was.

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Author's Note

"I have never been closer to my death than in Oeth-Anoeth . . . It is better that I do not speak of the torments Achren had devised. The worst were not of the body but of the spirit, and of these the most painful was despair. Yet, even in my deepest anguish, I clung to hope."

--Gwydion to Taran and the companions near the end of _The Book of Three_

"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."

--1 Corinthians 15, 26; inscription on the grave of Lily and James Potter in J. K. Rowling, _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_

My friends from the "Bards of Prydain" forum will note that I have finally overcome Gwydion Anxiety, or my reluctance hitherto to move the Prince of Don from the margins of my stories to the center. Truth to tell, from childhood I have been a bit intimidated by Gwydion. It's easy to imagine him chasing me, brandishing Dyrnwyn, should I attempt to flesh out the myriad blank spaces of his backstory.

And yet here I dare address the episode in which this fiercely dignified man is nearly broken. My choice of subject reflects the shift over time in my conception of Gwydion. When I was a child, I found him daunting in his (often stern) wisdom, power, and nobility. Now that I myself am middle-aged, I see more clearly the man's vulnerability. Alexander himself emphasizes this. True, at the end of _The Book of Three_ Gwydion, clad "in the shining raiment of a prince," "a new depth and power" in his eyes, has attained godlike knowledge after surviving his ordeal at Oeth-Anoeth. And yet in subsequent books Alexander downplays these superpowers, showing us, as often as not, a weary, embattled figure. After _The Book of Three _we do not see Gwydion using his new-found ability to understand the language of animals; nor does the knowledge of "the truth of the world" gained in Oeth-Anoeth enable him to read the truth of the hearts of erstwhile allies—Morgant and Pryderi—who betray him. It's only too symptomatic, perhaps, that at the beginning of _The High King_ we first see Gwydion slung unconscious over Fflewddur's shoulder. Scarcely the most exalted of entrances. And yet appropriate, in that we must acknowledge the Prince of Don's mortal limits, at least as long as he inhabits that vale of tears and encroaching evil, Prydain. In writing this fic I have decided, in fact, to represent Gwydion's new powers after Oeth-Anoeth as being gained not _despite _his human frailty but, paradoxically, _because_ of it. It is the acceptance of his own humanity that, finally, differentiates the Prince of Don from Arawn—a theme about which I shall say more below.

In one way, it is true, I may have altered canon, or at least given it my own interpretation. When Gwydion tells Taran and the companions about Oeth-Anoeth, he implies that he knew all along that, if he held fast to hope, he would be released from his prison. I, however, have chosen to represent his deliverance as a genuine surprise. After all, what victory could one have over despair if one always knew one need not despair?

And so I have plunged Gwydion into the depths of what I call "boundless affliction." The term "affliction" as I am using it, by the way, is taken from the thought of the French philosopher Simone Weil (1909-43), a figure popular among postwar intellectuals and with whose work Alexander may well have been familiar. A Marxist, anti-fascist, and Jew who was attracted to Catholicism but never converted, Weil wrote eloquently about affliction (in French, _malheur_), a condition she defines as the dehumanization—the transformation of a person into a "thing"—that results when one is victimized by oppressive power, pain, and (particularly important ingredient) "social degradation." My representation of Gwydion's shame and subsequent loss of self is indebted to Weil's description, in her essay "The Love of God and Affliction,"of the degradation which "hardens and discourages because, like a red-hot iron, it stamps the soul to its very depths with the contempt, the disgust, and even the self-hatred and sense of defilement which crime logically should produce but actually does not."

I also find in Alexander's depiction of Gwydion's trials in Oeth-Anoeth a striking parallel to J. K. Rowling's Azkaban and its dementors who suck hope from their victims. Gwydion discovers here, as does Harry and his companions, that it is only the patronus of hope and love that can keep such demons at bay. Inspired by the many similarities between them, in fact, I have tried in this fic to bring the two series I love best—Rowling's and Alexander's—into dialogue. You'll notice that my title is taken from Rowling's appropriation of Corinthians in _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_. (Thank you, Oboe-Wan, for pointing out to me the Biblical reference. And, by the way, if anyone reading this hasn't yet made it to the last Harry Potter book, you may want to skip the ensuing comments.) I have been deeply influenced in this story by Rowling's insight, in _Deathly Hallows_ and the Potter books more generally, that our worst enemy is not our own mortality but the soulless attempt to transcend it. "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death": this line attests, as does the Biblical passage, to the immortality of the soul, as well as to that theme that underlies Rowling's work, the power of love to transcend death. And yet Rowling, like Alexander, shows us that worse even than death is the fear of death, the fear of mortal limits. Casting aside humanity in his quest to overcome mortality, Voldemort lacks the knowledge that Harry gains, and which causes him to triumph by making peace with death like the third brother in the tale of Beedle the Bard. (Yes, my tale-within-a-tale of the Seed of Hope was inspired by Rowling's using the tale of the three brothers as a key to the message of _Deathly Hallows_. And, yes, I couldn't resist bringing in Taliesin, even in Oeth-Anoeth. Did you think I could?)

In concluding, I urge you to visit the "Bards of Prydain" forum on this site if you wish to speak more of these matters, including the parallels between Prydain and the world of Harry Potter. Although this forum is structured by interviews with the writers of Prydain fics, do not think you have to be an author to participate. I hope you can join us!


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